


Overprotective

by lod



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 22:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19877338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lod/pseuds/lod
Summary: Unfortunately, his traitorous body decided to force another cough out at that moment, and Yu stood and walked towards him.“You need to rest,” he said in a voice that brooked no opposition, and then picked Yosuke up like he weighted nothing. Yosuke made a noise somewhere between a pig being murdered and a balloon being ran over.--For the dialogue prompt "You’re sick. You need to stay in bed." This one got away from me a little!





	Overprotective

“Aaaaahhhhhhh!”

“Teddie! Stop panicking!” Yosuke dug around for a sedative while Yu and Kanji attacked the Monopolizing Cupid that had just hit Teddie with a Pulinpa spell. He was holding all the healing items for the team at the moment, which meant he had a ridiculous assortment of bottles with various teas, jellies and medications clinking together in the depths of his bag. He looked away from the battle for a moment to find the right bottle.

“Ah ha!” he exclaimed, extracting the dark maroon flask he’d been looking for. Unfortunately, he was just a moment too late — he just had time to see Teddie aiming some pink and sparkly spell towards Yu while yelling something that sounded like “my ring karen.” What had that even been? He was fairly sure he’d never seen Teddie use that skill before. Yosuke threw the sedative at Teddie before he could do any more damage, then ran to check on Yu. He didn’t seem to have taken any damage from the attack, although… he was making a bit of a weird face. His pupils were blown wide, and he looked a little flushed. He wasn’t hurt or attacking the wrong side, though, so Yosuke left him alone and turned back to the Shadows.

He aimed a Garula at the Phantom Master’s face, pleased to see it stumbling to the ground with a pained expression. Kanji landed a critical hit on the Pursuing Pesce next to it, and Yosuke turned to Yu with a grin.

“Let’s go, partner!”

To his surprise, Yu didn’t raise his hand to wave them forward; instead he reached out to crush his tarot card and… summon Titania?

“Partner?”

Yu completely ignored him, and sent Titania out with a loud “Diarama!”

Yosuke looked around, surprise, but no, no one’d gotten hurt without him noticing; at most, they had a few scratches, but nothing worth interrupting an all-out attack. Had Yu been hit with a panic spell as well? He didn’t look panicked or confused at all, though; in fact he seemed strangely _happy_ , actually. Then the Diarama spell hit, and Yosuke’s eyes went round as he saw that he was healing _the Shadows_. 

“Partner! Damnit, what are you doing?!”

The Phantom Master floated back into the air, looking as fresh as it had at the beginning of the fight, and Yosuke called on Jiraiya to take it back down before it could attack again. What was he supposed to do? He had no idea what status effect Yu was under!

“Kanji, Teddie, you guys handle the Shadows; I’m gonna see if I can snap Yu out of it!”

He tossed one curative after another at Yu, but none had the slightest effect, and Yu continued to heal the Shadows faster than Kanji and Teddie could knock down their health. Yosuke tried to get close to see if he could physically restrain him and stop him from summoning his Persona, but Yu swiped at him with his sword when he did, and a fight with his partner was _not_ going to help anyone right now. Having ran out of options to cure him — if Yukiko’d been here he would have asked her to try her all-purpose healing skill, but she was already resting in the changing rooms at the entrance of the bathhouse, having used up all her energy — Yosuke finally gave up and joined Kanji and Teddie in attacking the Shadows.

They were lucky that Yu had already been pretty out of steam when the battle began; he ran out of energy before they did, allowing them to finish taking the Shadows down. By the end of what should have been a routine battle, the entire team was exhausted. Yosuke didn’t even ask Yu before using a Goho-M to send them all back to the entrance, not wanting to risk any other Shadows showing up.

* * *

“Partner, are you feeling alright?” Yosuke asked as soon as they arrived at the entrance.

Yu smiled at him. “I’m fine, Yosuke.”

There was still something a little strange about his expression, but that might just have been a combination of hazy heat and exhaustion. Status effects never stuck around after battles ended, anyway. Now the question was, what exactly had that status effect _been_? He was sure he’d never seen it before.

“What was that attack, Teddie?”

“I don’t know!” Teddie wailed. “You know how I leveled up right after we started training?”

Yosuke nodded.

“Well, something weird happened to one of Kintoki-Douji’s skills when I did, and it changed into this! I didn’t mean to use it on Yuuuuuu!”

That was a surprise; Yu had mentioned this happening sometimes when his Personas leveled up, but it’d never happened to anyone else before. He looked at him, wondering what he thought of all this, but he was frowning and… it looked like he was trying to summon his Persona? He was clearly out of energy, though. What was he trying to do? Yosuke was starting to wonder if it’d be worth spending a Soul Drop to give Yukiko enough energy for a Patra spell. They were rare enough that Yu preferred to save them as backup for their harder battles, but if Yu still hadn’t recovered… As he looked on, Yu stopped and stretched, focusing on the group.

“You’re all very tired. Let’s go home,” he said, and started heading towards the backlot with a glance over his shoulder to make sure they were following.

Yosuke heaved a relieved sigh. There was his normal leader. It was probably just another one of those wildcard things, like the way he disappeared sometimes in the backlot, as if he was stepping through a door they couldn’t see.

They made it back out of the TV without any further complications, and it wasn’t until they were a few hundred meters out of Junes and had split up from the girls that Yu gave any more signs of being impaired.

“Kanji, your shoelace is untied.”

“Huh?” Kanji looked down. “Oh, guess it is. Eh, no big deal.” He shrugged and continued walking.

Yu stepped in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. “Your shoelace is untied,” he insisted forcefully. “That’s dangerous,” he added as he bent down.

“Uhh, Senpai, I can do that myself!” Kanji said, alarmed.

“Shhh,” Yu was already done tying the shoelace, rising back to his feet. “There you go, that’s much better.”

Yosuke and Kanji traded a worried look. “Senpai, are you _sure_ you’re feeling ok?”

Yu gave them both a confused smile. “Of course I am. I just don’t want you to get hurt.” An intense glow seemed to suddenly light his eyes. “You need to stay safe.”

Now Yosuke was certain there was something strange going on. Yu was always protective of his teammates, sure, but he was never aggressive about it. The way he’d said it… it had almost sounded like a _threat_. Stay safe, _or else_.

“Hey, um, Teddie, didn’t you want to tell Yu about that new flavor of Topsicles we got at Junes?” Yosuke said, thinking fast.

Teddie bounced to Yu’s side. “Oh! Yes! They’ve got two flavors in one Topsicle, Senpai!”

While Teddie launched into a long explanation of the new frozen treats’ pros and cons, Yosuke drew Kanji aside discreetly.

“I dunno what exactly Teddie cast on him, but I’m thinking it didn’t wear off when the battle ended.”

“Yeah, he’s not actin’ right,” Kanji agreed.

“I’m gonna take him over to my place for the night — we can’t risk him acting weird with Nanako and Dojima around. Do you think you can take Teddie, though? I can’t handle both of them at once…”

Kanji nodded. “Sure thing, Senpai. What are you gonna do, though?”

“I guess just… wait and see if it wears off by tomorrow; usually status effects don’t stick around forever, right? And if not, we’ll hop in the TV with Yukiko and hope Konohana Sakuya can handle it.”

* * *

It wasn’t hard to convince Yu to stay at Yosuke’s for the night; they often had sleepovers after TV world excursions, either to analyze how the day had gone, or to blow off steam gaming together. It took a little more convincing getting Teddie to head home with Kanji, but it was finally the promise of “making a doll for Nanako together” that got him.

They made it home alright, but Yosuke made a mistake as he entered the kitchen, moaning loudly, “Man, I’m _staaarving_.”

“I’ll cook something,” Yu replied immediately.

“Huh? It’s late, you don’t need to do that. There’s some instant ramen.”

That was their usual post-TV world dinner, after all.

Yu, however, stared at Yosuke for a bit too long, then shook his head. “That’s not healthy. You need protein after all that fighting. I’ll cook while you shower.” Those last word were said with that same intensity he’d had earlier.

Yosuke stood, unsure of what to do. He’d seen how aggressively Yu had reacted to his attempts to stop him healing the Shadows earlier; he didn’t think Yu would attack him now in the real world, but he didn’t want to test that hypothesis out, either. On the other hand, he didn’t want to take advantage of Yu…

Yu was frowning at him.

“Yosuke, you need to go shower.”

He took a step towards Yosuke, who squeaked and ran off to the bathroom. Yu always cooked for him, it wasn’t a big deal, and in any case there was _no way_ he was risking Yu physically forcing him to shower. He felt himself blush violently just imagining how wrong that could go.

* * *

When he was done showering, Yu had set the table for two, with nice glass cups rather than their usual mugs, and even napkins. Yosuke was really glad his parents were out on a date that evening, because there was no way they’d have seen this and not asked what was going on. The Hanamuras were a very relaxed sort of family; fancy table settings were a Christmas and New Year’s thing, if even that.

The food was as delicious as ever, of course, and Yosuke managed to keep himself from setting Yu off; sticking to casual topics like movies and manga seemed to help. After dinner, they went up to his room. Usually, this was when they’d debrief the TV world outing — who needed more training, what had gone wrong and how to fix it for next time, what equipment needed to be upgraded or consumables replenished. This time, though, Yosuke didn’t think that was a good idea; there was too much potential for Yu’s protective impulses to come out. Instead, he directed them to the floor in front of his TV, shoving a controller into Yu’s hands.

“Can we play tonight? We can go over the TV world stuff tomorrow, I need a break.”

Yu nodded at Yosuke, who’d crawled over to sit by the console. “Sure. What are we playing?”

“Hmm… oh, what about Punch Ouch? I don’t think I’ve shown you that one yet!”

Yosuke dug the dusty cartridge in question out of the pile of games. He hadn’t touched it in almost a year; it wasn’t a very good single-player game, and before Yu, he hadn’t had many friends in Inaba to play with. He blew on it to dislodge the dust, coughing when some got into his mouth.

“Yosuke? Are you catching a cold?”

Yosuke recognized the tone in his partner’s voice with a shiver of dread.

“No! No, partner, I’m doing great! Just the dust, you know.”

Unfortunately, his traitorous body decided to force another cough out at that moment, and Yu stood and walked towards him.

“You need to rest,” he said in a voice that brooked no opposition, and then _picked Yosuke up like he weighted nothing_. Yosuke made a noise somewhere between a pig being murdered and a balloon being ran over.

“Yu! Partner, let me down!”

Yu did — onto his bed, where he pressed Yosuke into the mattress with a hand on his chest. “Get some sleep,” Yu said. “I’ll go shower and turn off the lights, so you don’t need to worry about anything.” 

To Yosuke’s relief, Yu then left the room, seeming to trust him to stay in bed. He waited until he could hear the shower running, then rushed to grab his phone to send a message to the IT group chat.

> **Yosuke** U GUYS hav 2 come ASAP 2moro!!!!  
>  yus gone rogue he wz tryin 2 force me 2 go 2 slp just cuz I coughd  
>  yukiko i think your patra skills our nly hope  
>  4 real u hav 2 come i dont know if hell let me leave

After a few tense minutes, Kanji replied.

> **Kanji** We’ll be there, Senpai.  
>  Do you need me to come right now? 
> 
> **Yosuke** nah its fine ill b k just gota go along w wat he sez  
>  neway its too l8 2 go bak 2 Junes rght now

Yosuke was so focused on his phone, and on the confirmation that someone would be coming to his rescue tomorrow, that he forgot to listen for the shower turning off.

“Yosuke!”

Yu’s shout was equal parts disappointed and shocked, and — although he would never admit it — Yosuke jumped about half a foot in the air when he heard him.

“Hey, partner, I was just—”

“You’re sick. You need to stay in bed.”

Yosuke scrambled to his feet and hurried to the bed with his phone in hand, not interested in being carried there again.

“Yep! Look, I’m going!”

Yu came to pull the covers up over him, and then snatched his phone out of his hand.

“You won’t rest well with your phone. I’ll go plug it in.”

 _Damn it_. Well, at least he’d managed to send his SOS out; now he just needed to make it until morning.

Yosuke was used to being a pretty unlucky guy, and it appeared tonight was no different, as Yu wasn’t done yet. After plugging Yosuke’s phone in, closing the door and turning out the light, he walked back over to the bed, and without warning, laid himself out flat right on top of Yosuke.

Yosuke’s strangled “Partner!?” was as much due to the weight on his ribcage — muscles were _heavy_ — as it was to his best friend’s sudden proximity. “I can’t breathe!”

“Oh, sorry,” Yu said, and Yosuke heaved a short-lived sigh of relief as Yu shifted away, which was promptly interrupted when Yu stopped after only a few inches and remained glued to Yosuke’s side, with his head on his chest and an arm and leg draped over his body.

Yosuke tried to keep calm as he went through his options. Moving right now was _definitely_ not an option. Yu had proved twice now that he was much stronger than Yosuke — not that that came as a surprise, considering how much he’d bulked out in the few months since they’d started exploring the TV — and he didn’t want to risk making him mad. Maybe he could wait until Yu fell asleep and wiggle out — although, where would he go? He _was_ tired, and this _was_ his bed, after all. He and Yu had both eaten and showered, it wasn’t a school day tomorrow so there was nothing to do tonight that couldn’t wait…

It had nothing to do with Yu being snuggled up to him; nothing to do with the arm holding him protectively close, or the soft breath ghosting across his neck, or the cheek resting on his bare collarbone where his loose nightshirt had slid down. It just made more _sense_ to stay here and sleep. Just as it made sense to free one of his arms, because Yu’s weight was starting to make him lose the feeling in it, and just as it made sense to wrap that arm around Yu’s back, because where _else_ was he going to put it?

Yosuke told himself that he was just being logical right up until he became too drowsy to care, at which point he shifted until his chin was resting atop his partner’s silver hair, and fell asleep.

* * *

He woke up in the middle of the night to Yu drawing away from him with a gasp. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened, not being awake enough to remember the previous evening; all he was really conscious of at that moment was that the warm, comfortable presence at his side was trying to move away, and he had no interest in letting that happen. He pressed down with the arm he still had around Yu’s back to pull him back in, and to his satisfaction after a moment Yu settled back down, holding him even closer than he had before. He wasn’t sure if the soft touch on his cheekbone was real or part of a dream, but he didn’t care, slipping back into the deep, dark pool of sleep.

* * *

The next time he woke up, it was to a loud pounding at his door.

“Yosuke! Are you alright?” a familiar angry voice called before the door was thrown open.

Yu and Yosuke tried to spring apart, suddenly fully aware of their situation, but Teddie was too fast for them. He landed on top of them both with a loud “CUDDLE PARTY!”

Kanji stalked closer, first pulling Teddie off the bed and then reaching for Yu.

“It’s ok, Kanji,” Yu said as he willingly followed the grip on his shoulders and separated from Yosuke. “I’m myself again.”

“Are you _absolutely_ sure?” Kanji replied with a suspicious scowl.

“Wait, I know how to check,” Yosuke said, pushing himself up to sit on the edge of his bed. “Be ready to catch him, though,” he added, before he started faking a violent cough.

Yu turned to him with a concerned look. “Are you alright, Yosuke?”

“I dunno, might be catching a cold,” Yosuke replied, bracing himself for Yu to force him back down.

Yu didn’t move — but he did blush fiercely as he seemed to recall the events of the night before, reaching a hand up to his lips and whispering, “I’m so sorry, Yosuke!”

“Yeah, ok. He’s fine, Kanji.”

Kanji looked between the two of them with a confused expression. “What _happened_ last night?”

Yu and Yosuke glanced at each other. He saw, reflected in his partner’s silver eyes, the memory of the previous night, and couldn’t hold eye contact any longer, looking away and turning just as red as Yu was.

Kanji was a very perceptive sort of guy, more so than most people gave him credit for. Yosuke found himself very grateful for that fact when the blonde cast one last look at them and then dragged Teddie out of the room without any further questions.

“C’mon, Teddie, we need to go finish Nanako’s doll.”

* * *

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Maybe they could just continue to stay silent about this whole thing, Yosuke allowed himself to hope. Just act like nothing had happened — which made sense considering nothing _had_ happened — and move on with their lives.

One glance back at his partner, who looked as awkward as he felt, showed him how absurd that idea was. There was no way they were moving past this without talking about it.

“So…” he started, right as Yu also spoke up.

“Well—”

“Go ahead, partner,” he said, all too willing to be spared the task of figuring out how to discuss this. “ _Please_ ,” he insisted when Yu seemed to hesitate.

“I’m sorry for how I acted last night,” Yu said, all formal and polite like they never were to each other.

“What? Why are you apologizing, it’s not your fault you were… I dunno, whatever that status effect was.”

“Still, I’m sure I made you uncomfortable.”

“I mean…” Yosuke scratched at his neck. “It’s you, you know? It’s fine.”

Yu still looked a little uncertain, so Yosuke knocked their shoulders together. “C’mon, cheer up. I’m pretty sure I’ll survive having spent one night with the most sought-after dude in Inaba,” he told him with a wink.

Yu frowned at him, that barely visible tightening of the brows that only his closest friends could even tell apart from his normal expression. “I’m trying to be serious!”

“I knoooow,” Yosuke replied, rolling his eyes, “but seriously, it’s not a big deal. It was comfy. Yeah, you don’t have boobs, but your skin’s soft, and anyway muscles are pretty nice too. Plus you’re really warm. We can do it again if you want sometime.”

They stared at each other at those words. Yeah, even for Yosuke’s “new and improved with 50% less no-homo panic” self, that had gone a little far. Sometimes he really wished his mouth would wait for input from his brain before opening and getting him into trouble. Telling Yu his _muscles were nice_? What the hell was that!

Yosuke was working himself up into a panic, but Yu, wonderful Yu who always knew what to do, just patted his shoulder and stood. “Well, I’m glad we’re fine. I was afraid you wouldn’t feel comfortable around me anymore. Are eggs ok for breakfast?”

Yosuke took a deep breath, grateful for the topic change. “Yeah, sounds great!”

Yu opened Yosuke’s closet to find a shirt — they slept over at each others’ houses so often that their clothing seemed to have migrated, so that half of Yu’s clothes were in Yosuke’s closet and vice-versa — but paused in the doorway.

“Did you mean that?”

Did he mean… what, exactly? Yosuke had just spouted a whole truckload of ridiculous things; Yu was going to have to be more specific.

“That you wouldn’t mind doing it again. Um, sleeping together, I mean.”

Yosuke’s automatic reaction was to want to laugh it off, especially with that unintentionally suggestive wording; _of course not, partner, that’s gay. Come on!_

But… the truth was, he really had meant it. It wasn’t anything new to him that he enjoyed human contact. He’d had a couple girlfriends back in the city — nothing serious, a little handholding, maybe a few kisses too — but nothing since he’d come to Inaba. The arm he slung around Yu’s shoulders now and then really wasn’t enough to make up for it. It wasn’t information he would ever volunteer, but Teddie’s regular intrusions into his bed weren’t all that unwelcome, even with his habit of stealing all the covers to make himself into a bear-rito (his words; decidedly _not_ Yosuke’s). So what was wrong with a little more physical intimacy with his best friend? Chie and Yukiko were always hanging all over each other, and no one ever said _that_ was weird.

Yosuke knew it was different for them, though. Girls were allowed to hug and kiss each others’ cheeks and hold hands, and no one would bat an eyelash, but not normal guys. Normal guys didn’t cuddle their best friends, or cry in their arms about their dead crush, or eat their homemade food for lunch nearly every day. Normal guys just talked trash about girls behind their backs and made fun of each other and never called you back when you moved away. Or at least, that was what all the normal guys Yosuke’d known before moving to Inaba did. Honestly, he wouldn’t have traded Yu for a million of them, though, so maybe he wasn’t all that interested in what normal guys did after all.

He stood and walked up to Yu, hugging him briefly before stepping back.

“Yeah. I meant it.”

It was worth the potential embarrassment to see Yu’s gentle smile, the one Yosuke knew he reserved for the moments that touched him most, like when Nanako’d made him a drawing or a cat had chosen to climb on his lap. 

* * *

That night, Teddie was in Yosuke’s bed again despite his protests, sprawled all over the place, but despite the fact that he was like a damn furnace even without his fur suit, Yosuke still felt oddly cold. He’d been so much warmer last night, held snugly by his partner, feeling the rise and fall of his chest beneath his arm. It didn’t make sense that Teddie and Yu felt so different, he thought as he finally started drifting off to memories of a warm breath against his neck and of a hand wrapped around his shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” the part of his soul that thought of itself as Jiraiya whispered into his dreams. “You’ll understand, when the time is right.”

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with this whole plot and THEN realised Marin Karin doesn't exist in P4. I've been playing P3 FES lately and I guess Mitsuru's stupid Marin Karins have gotten into my brain :P  
> For those who've never played P3, Marin Karin causes "Charm" which makes the target fall in love with the caster, and generally results in healing the enemy. I decided to treat it as mostly an overprotective sort of thing, hence the title!


End file.
